Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/537

 10 s. xii. DEC. 4, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

441

LONDON, SATURDAY, DECEMBER b, 1909.

OONTENTS.-No. 310.

NOTES : Thomas Paine and the Declaration of Indepen- dence, 441 " Suckets " and "Sunkets," 443 W. Jay, the

. Preacher: Cyrus Jay, 444 Pneumatic Tyres Protocols, 445 Walsh Surname De Raet Baronetcy, 446 Waltheof, Earl of Northumberland, 447.

QUERIES : Flaubert's 'Tentation de St. Antoine,' 447 J. Rodman Drake Three Ravens and James I. Charles I. Medallion Kipling in Spanish Authors Wanted "Mors sceptra ligonibus sequat," 448 En- graved Portrait of Disraeli British Army in 1763 Bridge Frodsham Lord Keeper Lane Archbishop Neile Burial-Places of Notable Actresses Jennnens Family Beeswing Club Dante MSS., 449 Feet of Fines- Historical MSS. Discovered, 450.

REPLIES : ' The Abbey of Kilkhampton,' 450 Louis XIV. Tablecloth Vicomte Vilain XIIII., 451 Cire-perdue Process Edmund, Baron de Harold Fair Rosamond, 452 Last Prior of Twynham St. Margaret's, West- minster, 453 "Tailed" in Fuller Drinking Tobacco, 454 Richard Graves the Younger, 455 French Taxes Re- mittedRev. Henry Morris Mary, Queen of Scots : Spur and Brooch Miss Vanneck ' ' Culprit, " 456 Scott's 'Search after Happiness 'Governors of Iceland " Tag- lioni"=Greatcoat "Pope Night," 458.

NOTES ON BOOKS : Button on Giovanni Boccaccio- Goldsmith's Plays.

Booksellers' Catalogues. Notices to Correspondents.

THOMAS PAINE AND THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

SEVERAL startling statements about Thomas Paine have recently appeared in English journals. Thus in The Nation {London) of 8 May last, p. 189, Paine was called " the first coiner of the great thought and expression, ' The United States of America. 1 ll Proof of this assertion would naturally be of interest to Americans. Again, the same writer said : " But modern sceptics who contemn the abstract idealism of the man who helped to draft the Declaration of Independence must not be permitted to deceive us.' 1 Finally, at p. 44 of the present volume of ' N. & Q., 1 MB. JAMES M. Dow speaks of " Thomas Paine, who, students now admit, was joint author of the American Declaration of Independence. 11

That Paine' s ' Common Sense,' published $ Jan., 1776, exerted a remarkable influence in favour of independence was freely

admitted by Paine's contemporaries, and has since been universally acknowledged by historians ; but that Paine had any share in the actual drafting of the Declaration of Independence is a totally different matter. MB. Dow would confer a favour by naming the " students " who admit that Paine was " joint author ?1 of that famous document, and giving their reasons for the admission. So far as the present writer is aware, no " student " makes such an admission, and only two " students "- assert that Paine was in any way concerned in the drafting of the Declaration.

First, Mr. Ellery Sedgwick in his * Thomas Paine, 1 1899, p. 22, says :

" Paine was now a marked man to those who knew the authorship of ' Common 'Sense ' ; and Jefferson, whose intimacy with him dates from this time, seems to have sought his advice con- cerning the language of the instrument. There is little evidence to show that words of Paine's were actually incorporated by Jefferson ; but his influence appeared in a fine passage of the pre- liminary draft denouncing slavery. This clause was born before its time, and did not live in the Declaration of Independence."

Mr. Sedgwick offers no proof, but his remarks were doubtless based on the extract from Conway given below.

Secondly, in his ' Life of Thomas Paine,'' published in 1892, the late Moncure D. Conway said (i. 81) that

" the Declaration embodied every principle he [Paine] had been asserting, and indeed Cobbett is correct in saying that whoever may have written the Declaration, Paine was its author " ;

and that Paine's " first pamphlet [i.e. ' Common Sense J ] had dictated the Declara- tion of Independence " (i. 91). Where Cobbett makes such a statement, Conway does not indicate. It will be found neither in Cobbett' s ' Life of Paine, 1 published in 1796, nor in Cobbett's ' Thomas Paine : a Sketch of his Life and Character, 1 written much later, and first printed in Conway 's ' Life of Paine, 1 ii. 433-59. Conway ? s own statement and that attributed by him to Cobbett are alike preposterous. Elsewhere in the same work Conway attempts to be more precise, saying (i. 80) :

" At this time Paine saw much of Jefferson, and there can be little doubt that the anti- slavery clause struck out of the Declaration was written by Paine, or by some one who had Paine's anti-slavery essay before him. In the following passages it will be observed that the antitheses are nearly the same ' infidel and Christian,' * heathen and Christian.' "

Here we have two distinct statements. First, that " at this time Paine saw much of Jefferson.' 1 Conway offers no proof of